I think hackerspaces already have the answer, because they consist of people doing just that. I'd say the best thing to do is to lead by example, and use what we already have at hand to show that it can be done. Maybe when the rest of the people see us living well on a dozen hours of work a week and spending the rest of the time building rockets and airships, and writing games and poems... maybe they'll want some of that.

Productivity and leisure time are at the highest in human history and what do most people do with it? Watch "reality TV" and play Angry Birds...

The root answer isn't technical, or even economic. It's cultural.

I think it's not so simple; the nature of the work that we do has also changed. People used to work on the land or in a factory, 10, 12 hours per day of manual labour. A hard life for sure, but you can do it asleep on your feet. That kind of work doesn't exist any more at least in the West thanks to mechanisation and automation, and the work that remains requires a lot more brain power.

I don't know about you guys, but if I manage six hours of focussed, productive work on a day, I consider it a good day. Of course there are always also some simpler things that need doing, and I save those for the end of the day when I'm too gassed to do anything complicated. Those things are not entirely useless, but there's not enough of them to fill another six hours.

Then there's travelling time. People lived on the farm, in the middle of their agricultural grounds, or in a small house next to the factory, but now we're all in suburbs or exurbs. There's higher levels of background stress due to higher population density, pollution, and a much more complex society where everything is now connected. We're spending more of our fittest, healthiest years studying so as to be able to still make a contribution to that complex society. Better medicine has brought better health, so we can keep working for longer, but that older working population is also less energetic.

So I think it's not just cultural, it's also psychological, and demographical.

_________________Say, can you feel the thunder in the air? Just like the moment ’fore it hits – then it’s everywhereWhat is this spell we’re under, do you care? The might to rise above it is now within your sphereMachinae Supremacy – Sid Icarus

Just like we can't really comprehend the savage superstitiousness of our ancestors, future generations will look back at us and be baffled by the vast amount of time, talent, and material we squander on shallow, pointless pursuits. Everything from drugs to give old men erections to weapons that can destroy all life on this planet.

While Capitalism is powerful and has driven us to this high point of technology and culture, it has done so largely indiscriminately. Mr. Smith's "Invisible Hand" is only as smart as the aggregate median human consumer. That isn't all that smart...

Last edited by JamesG on Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Just like we can't really comprehend the savage surreptitiousness of our ancestors, future generations will look back at us and be baffled by the vast amount of time, talent, and material we squander on shallow, pointless pursuits. Everything from drugs to give old men erections to weapons that can destroy all life on this planet.

While Capitalism is powerful and has driven us to this high point of technology and culture, it has done so largely indiscriminately. Mr. Smith's "Invisible Hand" is only as smart as the aggregate median human consumer. That isn't all that smart...

I imagine that you aren't an old man . . .

I hate it when people talk about humanity as "we". All people are different, and there are vastly different cultures all around the world, some bad, some good, and some in between. Lumping everyone together in order to condemn humanity is wrong. Speak for yourself.

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous

The "we" I was referring to was "western culture" (which includes Israel BTW).

I far prefer the things we spend our time and money on, then what everyone else does. In the West, women aren't beaten and don't have their genitals cut up in order to make them submissive, political opponents aren't murdered, or harvested for their organs, and people are more or less free - so much so, that it is hard for "Westerners" to imagine that real evil exists. And that is dangerous, because if you don't know evil exists, you won't prepare for it.

And that includes the nukes, and weapons of war - which protect us from everyone else. And I really don't think giving older people a sex life is worthless, either.

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous

...In the West, women aren't beaten and don't have their genitals cut up in order to make them submissive, political opponents aren't murdered, or harvested for their organs, and people are more or less free - so much so, that it is hard for "Westerners" to imagine that real evil exists. And that is dangerous, because if you don't know evil exists, you won't prepare for it.

And that includes the nukes, and weapons of war - which protect us from everyone else.

I'm with you 100%...

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...And I really don't think giving older people a sex life is worthless, either.

I far prefer the things we spend our time and money on, then what everyone else does.

My post was not a comparative analysis of various human cultures.

You can't talk about "western" culture without contrasting it with other cultures. Otherwise, the "western" part is meaningless.

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And that is dangerous, because if you don't know evil exists, you won't prepare for it.

And has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

[/quote]It's the downside of condemning western culture.

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And that includes the nukes, and weapons of war - which protect us from everyone else. And I really don't think giving older people a sex life is worthless, either.

Which proves you are not much more than monkey hording your bananas from the other monkeys.

Hoarding? Where do you think civilization comes from? Trees? People produce things, and that is good, and it is good that they keep what they produce. If they didn't, civilization would implode, and then we really would be like monkeys hoarding bananas. By the way, I hate bananas.

_________________“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” -Anonymous

I'm not a big fan of bananas either, but they may be a useful metaphor for the benefits of our civilization.

Everyone likes peace, tolerance, democracy, education, eqality... the fruits (or bananas?) of our modern civilization, but nobody wants to hear what it takes to produce or preserve them.

C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man:

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It will be seen that comfort and security, as known to a suburban street in peace-time, are the ultimate values; [but] those things which can alone produce or spiritualize comfort and security are mocked... peace matters more than honour and can be preserved by jeering at colonels and reading newspapers.

Jeering at colonels is a favorite pass-time of American liberals, and sadly many of them do believe that's the way to preserve peace. (At least until they get into the White House.)

I happen to be a "peace through superior firepower" guy, but I respect the rights of others to disagree... as long as they get out of the way and let the colonels do their work when the barbarian hordes come to destroy our bananas.

I presume you'll have heard of Geoffrey Landis then, since you've been reading about it on the internet? He's probably done the most work on the subject.

Water won't be much of a problem, because once we've go it, we've got it. Condensing out the sulphuric acid and decomposing it won't be difficult, and I'm sure we can use the Sulphur for something (plastics manufacturing?). I'd like to use some of the Hydrogen to improve our lifting ability, but we don't need it for that purpose.

Perhaps, to increase the amount, we can mine the solar wind? Lot's of Hydrogen and Helium there.

Carbon, fortunately, is the wonder material of the universe. We can use it for pretty much all our building needs.